First of all, many thanks to all of you who posted birthday greetings. Makes getting older more tolerable. I got some great presents. My sons gave me an iMac with a huge monitor they call the Jumbotron. Said it was for my tired old eyes. Much appreciated.

And then, Jeanne and Ron and Nina Else of WhoElse Books gave me this book. They said it was an academic study of popular culture. I have my doubts. But thanks, I'm enjoying my research. (See, Jeanne is the corrupting influence, not me!)

WHAT WAS I THINKING!

The contest is going great. We've got some amazing stories. Remember, we tweaked the rules. You can post an episode that happened to a "friend." Don't forget our super cool prizes. Our little Devil Duck can't wait to get unleashed.

Vampiric news: Katherine Ramsland wrote an investigative book, Piercing the Darkness: Undercover with Vampires in America Today and you can read a review here. Funny, Jeanne and I make our living writing about vampires, real vampires, the ass-kicking kind, not weepy fangless wimps, yet Ramsland never asked us experts. Maybe it's because Jeanne and I aren't into role-playing and all that poser BS. We prefer to bust caps with a 9 millimeter.

I'm not a Woody Allen fan. His movies lost me years ago. Yet I saw Whatever Works, and enjoyed it quite a bit. The cast looks like it could've used a few more rehearsals and the plot

was a bit forced but no more so than the ranting that passes for political discourse these days. Here are the stars, Larry David as the misanthropic Boris Yellnikoff, and Evan Rachel Wood as the guileless Melodie St. Ann Celestine. Patricia Clarkson stole the show as Marietta, Melodie's mom and bitchy foil to Boris' kvetching.

Big shout out to Alexandra Sokoloff for winning a 2009 Thriller Award for Best Short Story, The Edge of Seventeen (in The Darker Mask).

And here's something for you lovers of slash fiction. Dancing soldiers!

This just in from Publishers Lunch:

Dakota Cassidy's SUCK IT UP PRINCESS, the first in a humorous contemporary series about ex-trophy wives and their painful reentry into the foreign world of Wal-Mart, coupon clipping, minimum-wage jobs, all while learning true love means more than botox and silicone implants, to Cindy Hwang at Berkley, in a nice deal, in a three-book deal, by Elaine Spencer at The Knight Agency (NA).

Mario I wanted to tell you that I had to grin when I finished the Mass Market version of Fiona McIntosh's book Goddess when it came out two weeks ago. You know the last pages of the book where they advertise books from other authors? The last page featured about seven books and two of them were yours. You were the only person on the list that was repeated twice. It made me grin :)